


Interrogation Techniques

by osprey_archer



Series: Reciprocity [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 17:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3142160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky kidnaps a Hydra agent for interrogation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interrogation Techniques

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to littlerhymes for betaing this!

Two days before Steve and Bucky were supposed to leave the lodge and head back to DC, Coulson caught Steve as he sat sketching in the picture window. Coulson said, “You and Barnes should come with us on the Bus.” The Bus was his name for the Quinjet. 

Steve’s first thought, which he bit back, was _hell no_. His second, which he probably should have bitten back as well, was, “What? The bugs in our apartment don’t let you keep tabs on us well enough?” 

“Nothing replaces first-hand observation,” said Coulson, absolutely unruffled. 

That knocked the wind out of Steve’s sails. Some part of him had hoped that Coulson would deny it (although wouldn’t that be worse, being bugged by an outside organization?). Or at least that Coulson would look a little ashamed. But no. 

Before Steve had gathered his thoughts, Coulson continued, “We need you along for our campaign against Hydra’s new supersoldier experimentation facilities. They always have their more successful experiments guarding the gates.” 

_Successful_ was an optimistic term for Hydra’s recent experiments: they were super strong, but not much else. Did Hydra’s experimental recruits have second thoughts when they saw the shambling zombies patrolling the grounds? (Would Steve have had second thoughts if he had seen what the serum did to Red Skull?) 

SHIELD hadn’t yet managed to rescue any recruits alive, so there was no way to know. 

“Well,” said Steve. “Until we’ve got Hydra’s latest project under control, maybe.”

Coulson’s mild gaze had shifted from Steve to the scene through the picture window: Simmons was climbing cautiously up the spiral staircase in their snow tower, the younger SHIELD agents and Bucky ranged below to watch the tower for signs of crumbling. 

Steve looked down at his sketch of the scene, then flipped his sketchbook shut, feeling suddenly that the drawing – even though all the figures in it were fuzzy bundled-up shapes in the snow – revealed too much of his thoughts. 

“I’ll talk to Bucky,” Steve said. Coulson looked, for a bare quarter of a second, surprised: like it hadn’t occurred to him that Bucky would need to be consulted. “He’s an adult, Coulson, he deserves to have some say in how he lives his life.” 

Bucky, to Steve’s surprise, actually seemed enthusiastic about the idea – and not for the benefit of any listening bugs, either, because Steve didn’t bring it up until they went for a walk along the lakeshore that night. In the gray dusk it was hard to tell where ice changed to water and water changed to cloudy sky. Their breath barely showed in the frigid air. 

“Of course it’s a good idea,” Bucky said briskly. His dark scarf muffled his face, and when he turned to face Steve it reminded Steve unpleasantly of the Winter Soldier’s muzzle. “It will make Coulson happy.” 

“Is there anything you wouldn’t do to make Coulson happy?”

Bucky tugged on a spruce branch so it showered snow on Steve. “Kill you,” he said. 

Steve had hoped for a slightly longer list. 

The snow crunched under their feet as they walked back to the lodge. The light spilled through the lodge’s tall windows onto the snow. 

Bucky stopped just beyond the edge of the trees, not quite within reach of the lights: invisible from the inside. He tilted his head back and turned around, looking up at the stars: hundreds upon hundreds of stars, some so pale that Steve wasn’t sure if they were really there, or if it was a trick of his eyes. 

“Grisha used to say,” Bucky said, “that if you talk in a car the chauffeur is listening, and if you talk in a house the walls are listening. But if you talk under the sky only God is listening.” 

Steve was startled. “That’s not very Bolshevik.” 

Bucky pulled his coat tighter around him. He ran hot, same as Steve did, but it never seemed to make him feel warm. “He meant no one is listening, of course. He had all those bourgeois memories rattling around in his head, it’s not his fault he didn’t say things quite right sometimes.” He stomped his feet to warm them. The snow squeaked. “You got anything else you need to get out of your system before we’re on the Bus?” 

Steve thought about it. “Can I hug you?” he asked. 

“Sure,” said Bucky, with a shrug like he didn’t really care. But when Steve hugged him, Bucky put his flesh arm around Steve, so tight that Steve could barely breathe. 

“You know,” said Steve, when Bucky had loosened his grip a bit and stood with his face pressed against Steve’s scarf, “you could let me hug you on the Bus. They’re nice people, Coulson’s field agents. Very huggy.” Possibly minions of evil, but very huggy. “They wouldn’t think it’s weird.” 

Bucky shook his head. 

“Why?” Steve pressed. 

“I don’t want you to,” said Bucky. He let go of Steve and plunged into window light, crossing the snow to the lodge. 

***

It was a few weeks and half a dozen missions later that Bucky kidnapped a Hydra operative for SHIELD. He was a few minutes late to the rendezvous, and Steve was about ready to go back and look for him when he thudded up the loading ramp with a man slung over his shoulders. 

“Close her up,” Coulson ordered, and the ramp closed so quickly that Bucky fell the last few feet into the plane and dumped the man on the floor. He managed, somehow, to make it look as if he had meant to do that. 

“Brought you a present,” Bucky said, grabbing the man’s shoulder to roll him over so they could see his face. 

Simmons let the barrel of her gun drop as she stepped forward to peer at him. “That’s Dale Axminster!” she cried. “He wrote a few completely _brilliant_ papers about speeding up healing functions – ”

“He did my field maintenance,” Bucky said. Simmons stopped talking with a noise midway between a gag and a whimper. Bucky glanced up at her, blank-eyed, something scornful in the twist at the corner of his mouth. Never mind that he usually liked Simmons. 

But then Axminster groaned, and Bucky’s gaze snapped back down to him. He slapped Axminster’s cheek with the back of his gloved metal hand and said something in Russian. 

“No, no, no,” said Axminster, and lifted his hands to cover his face. Bucky grabbed one of his arms, jerking it down, and Axminster let out a yell. “ _Fuck_ ,” Axminster whimpered. “Please don’t break my arm, _please_ don’t break my arm this time, please don’t break – ” Bucky gave his arm a little shake, like a terrier with a rat, and Axminster began to giggle uncontrollably. Tears rolled down his cheeks. 

“Soldat!” Steve said sharply. On missions, in front of Hydra operatives, Bucky went by his old code name. The higher-level Hydra operatives might know who he was, but Hydra compartmentalized knowledge even better than SHIELD, and there was no reason to let lower-level operatives in on the secret. 

Bucky didn’t respond. He didn’t talk in front of Hydra operatives, either. 

Axminster’s eyes had fastened on Steve’s face. “SHIELD,” he gasped, and he actually looked relieved. “Please make him let go of me. I’ll tell you everything you want, I swear, anything, I know the whole operation from top to bottom, I know everything, please let me tell you, _please_ – ”

Bucky grabbed Axminster by the scruff of his neck and dragged him into a sitting position. Axminster gurgled. “Molodyetz,” Bucky rapped out. _Good job_. 

“Soldat,” Steve snapped. Usually he tried not to give Bucky orders, but this was too much. “Get out of here.” 

Bucky, his hand still around Axminster’s neck, turned to look at Steve. Steve swallowed. That wasn’t Bucky’s face or even Soldat’s: that was the Asset’s blank-eyed automaton stare. 

But then Bucky blinked. Rage replaced the blankness in his eyes. He didn’t follow Steve’s order. Instead he said, “You don’t like my present?” 

Axminster made a funny gagging noise. The deck suddenly stank of urine. 

“No no, we love your present!” Simmons cried hastily. “Why don’t you let him go, and Fitz and I can have a nice pleasant chat with him and perhaps a cup of tea while he tells us everything he knows, which of course he can’t do if you break his neck. Fitz and I thought his article about protein receptors was quite brilliant, didn’t we, Fitz?”

“Run of the mill, really,” Fitz said. “Patil did better work. Till Hydra shot her.” 

Bucky and Steve were still looking at each other. Steve was beginning to feel frantic, although he didn’t let it show. Bucky could stare him down and they both knew it, and Steve had no idea what he would do if Bucky simply refused to let Axminster go. “Soldat,” said Steve. “Go.” 

Bucky shoved Axminster against the floor. His boots clanged on the stairs as he climbed out of the loading bay. 

“I should go after him,” Steve said. 

“Tell him we appreciate his present very much,” Coulson said. 

Steve decided to leave rather than come up with a response. 

Behind him, Steve could hear their pleasant voices, chatting. “Do you really want to drink tea while you interrogate him?” Coulson asked. “I’d hate to lose another tea set if we have to open the roof.” 

“It’s thirsty work, interrogating,” Fitz said. 

“Much nicer with a cup of oolong,” added Simmons. 

“Of course we mustn’t let him anywhere near the lab – ”

“He _did_ have a bit of a reputation for jerry-rigged explosives at the Academy, didn’t he? Oh, Axminster, do stop looking for escape routes. It will be long after tea time when we interrogate you if I have to shoot you with a night-night gun.” 

“If you won’t behave,” Coulson added, “we can always call the Winter Soldier back.” 

***

Steve had interrogated Rumlow not long after the fall of the Triskelion. Steve was probably (he admitted to himself, with over two years distance) the worst possible person to interrogate Rumlow about anything, given how raw Rumlow’s betrayal had left him. And when the topic of the interrogation was Bucky Barnes, alias the Winter Soldier, alias the Asset…

Rumlow was still in his hospital bed when they talked, hooked up to half a dozen machines and covered with burns. His voice was hoarse and rough from the damage smoke inhalation had done to his throat and lungs, and his eyes looked dead.

“Agents used to cry when they got assigned to work with him,” Rumlow informed Steve. “Your buddy once just about suffocated Rollins in a bowl of guacamole. Guess he didn’t like his chimichanga. No, I don’t have any idea where he’d run. He never talked if he could get his point across by smacking someone around.” 

Steve was almost shaking with rage. “I figure you all deserved it,” Steve told Rumlow. “After what you did to him.” 

“Don’t blame me for the fact that your pal’s a monster,” Rumlow said. His face was gray with pain. “I’m not the one who dropped him off the train.” 

If Rumlow had looked one iota less helpless, Steve probably would have beaten the shit out of him, and to hell with the Geneva Convention. And maybe that was why Rumlow had said it. His cause in ruins, in physical agony, surrounded by people who hated him, nothing to look forward to but prison: maybe Rumlow figured goading Steve into killing him was a good way out.

Steve had thought Rumlow was making it up, trying to cover for the fact that actually Bucky had spent his off time crying in a corner or – worse – Steve never tried to give form and substance to _worse_. It was one of those times where the vagueness was probably less horrible than the actuality. 

The actuality being, apparently, that Rumlow had told the absolute truth: Bucky spent most of his time with Hydra beating the shit out of everyone who got near him. And Steve still thought they deserved it, but it was one thing to believe that in the abstract and another to witness it – witness even the echo of it. _Please let me tell you everything._

Between his thoughts of Rumlow and his memory of Axminster in the loading bay, Steve still felt grubby after he’d finished washing. 

He ought to talk to Bucky. He would just start avoiding Bucky if he didn’t talk to him now. He hated talking to Bucky on the Quinjet: it brought out all Bucky’s gruesomely cheerful callousness, in a way Steve hadn’t expected. He hadn’t been like that among the SHIELD agents at the lodge.

But then, the lodge was set on four hundred acres of spruce forest and lakeshore: plenty of breathing room and plenty of places to talk away from bugs. And they weren’t going on missions then. 

Bucky’s music floated into the hall, quiet enough that Steve probably couldn’t have heard it without his super hearing. Bucky owned earbuds, but he hated wearing them. It was modern music, not the old Big Band music that Bucky played when he was upset. Steve swallowed against the sudden bitterness in his throat. 

_You want me to feel guilty_. Bucky had said that to Steve more than once, and he wasn’t wrong. Steve wanted him to feel guilty. Guilty enough that he wouldn’t threaten to break an unarmed prisoner’s arm, just for kicks. Or at least guilty enough that he wouldn’t listen to Taylor Swift afterward.

Bucky’s door was propped open, as usual. Steve thought it was probably claustrophobia (he opened his cabin door sometimes at night too; the cabin felt too tight when he woke up from nightmares about dying on the Valkyrie) but that wasn’t the kind of thing Bucky would talk about where Coulson could hear.

Steve knocked on the doorframe. The music turned off. “It’s open,” Bucky said.

Bucky’s cabin was just as bare as his room in their apartment in DC. He sat on his bed, still in his armor and boots. Clods of mud fell off the soles onto his bedspread. He looked up at Steve, waiting and wary, and Steve’s mind went blank. He should have come up with an opening line. _You want to talk about how you made a hardened Hydra operative piss his pants?_ came to mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“When did you break Axminster’s arm?” Steve asked. 

Some of the fight relaxed out of Bucky’s shoulders. “Ooooh,” he said, and he tipped his head back, thinking. “I thought I threw him down the stairs. But if he says arm it was probably arm.”

“You can’t remember?” Bucky’s memory was generally pretty good, and surely breaking someone’s bone was the kind of thing that ought to stick. Unless he’d done it so many times it barely even registered anymore. 

“I was _sure_ I threw him down the stairs,” Bucky mused. “Maybe he broke his arm in the fall?” 

Steve sat down hard on the end of Bucky’s bed. 

“Yeah,” said Bucky, his face brightening as the memory cleared. “Because the safe house in Odessa had this amazing grand staircase, and when I threw him, he tried to catch himself by sticking his arm through the banister, and it snapped. The bone, not the banister. _That_ was solid oak. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. I slid down it because I didn’t feel like jumping over the bodies – ”

“ _Bodies_?” Steve said. 

“They were all alive,” Bucky said, his voice bright and hard and mocking. “Sasha – Pierce, I mean – wouldn’t have liked it if I killed his agents. I guess because most of them were SHIELD agents too and he would have had to explain the corpses to Fury.” 

“He didn’t object to you _breaking their arms_?” 

“Why would he? He was like – remember Miss Neumeister? Our second grade teacher who figured the big boys beating up the little boys on the playground was survival of the fittest in action?” 

“Of course I remember Miss Neumeister.” 

(Steve and Bucky had met in her class after Steve drew some ill-advised caricatures of Miss Neumeister on the chalkboard. She made Steve stand in the corner all day, and at the end of it Bucky walked home from school with him. “We should be friends,” he told Steve. “I like to draw too.”) 

“They were all fucking worthless anyway. Plus it added to his mystique. You should’ve seen them all cringe when he hit me, it was beautiful. They thought I would go berserk.”

“Because beating up a whole safe house worth of agents wasn’t berserk already? Jesus Christ, Bucky, why did you beat up a whole safe house of agents?” 

Bucky scowled. “I shot the wrong person on the mission. I was confused, that’s all. I’d been out of cryo too long and I got confused. It doesn’t happen like that now that my memory’s okay.” He kicked the wall. Mud showered off his boot onto the bedspread. “They signed up for a movement with the slogan _order comes from pain_ , they could fucking deal with having a little order imposed on them. I’m not going to apologize to you for looking after myself.” 

“I don’t expect you to apologize,” Steve replied. “I just – isn’t there anything between apologetic and gleefully nostalgic?” 

Bucky fell silent. He tugged at the fingertips on his glove. “I don’t feel nostalgic,” Bucky said. “Not for Hydra.” 

“Well, gleeful, then,” Steve said. 

“You want me to feel guilty,” Bucky shot back. 

Steve was silent for a long time. “I feel like we mean something different when we use that word,” he said finally. “I don’t want you to – beat yourself up about it, or anything like that. You were protecting yourself and, after all, they signed up to be Nazis. But I also don’t want you to hurt helpless people.” Bucky opened his mouth. “And yes! Prisoners are helpless! I can’t believe I have to tell you that.” 

Usually Bucky responded to shouting by shouting right back, but this time he frowned out the window, looking down at the clouds. They were peach and pink in the sunset. “I wasn’t going to break his neck,” Bucky said. “Just scare him a little.” 

“Bucky. You terrified him.” 

Bucky’s eyebrows drew together. “He didn’t have to be such a baby about it.” 

“ _Bucky_ – ” Steve forced himself to take a deep breath. Shouting at Bucky wouldn’t help. Steve’s worst was probably not bad enough to make any kind of impression. 

Instead he said nothing. Bucky toyed at the bottom buckle on his armor, then tugged the tie off his ponytail, letting his hair fall in his face. 

Finally Steve said, “Pierce hit you?” 

“Jealous?” Bucky asked.

“ _Bucky_! No!” 

Bucky smiled like a cat with cream. He thrust his feet onto Steve’s lap. “Get my boots off.” 

Steve shoved Bucky’s leg away. “You know how to take your own boots off.”

Bucky didn’t ask again, just pulled his foot back to undo the laces. The mud-encrusted knot wouldn’t come undone. “He slapped me across the face when I misbehaved. It never even bruised,” Bucky said. 

_You flinch every time anything gets near your face,_ Steve thought, but Bucky would hate it if Steve said that out loud. “Bucky, if that’s true then he must have hit you every time he saw you.” 

“Pretty much,” Bucky said cheerfully. He broke the laces and yanked the boot off his foot. He hurled it out the door. It left a print on the far wall. He kicked Steve’s knee lightly with his newly unshod foot. His big toe peeped out of a hole in his sock. “Come on, Steve. It’s pretty funny. He was half my size and I could have snapped him like a twig.”

It didn’t strike Steve as funny. Bucky treated all the other Hydra agents like trash. What had Pierce done that convinced Bucky to let Pierce slap him? “I just hate to think of people hurting you,” Steve said. 

Bucky frowned. “Well, like I said. It didn’t hurt. And anyway he’s dead,” Bucky said. “The papers all said so, and the TVs and everything. Of course they also said that about Coulson and – ” He caught himself, Bucky bent his head forward so sharply that his hair hid his face.

Steve wondered if the next thing he planned to say was _Fury_. Bucky wasn’t supposed to know about that, but…

Bucky started jerking at the laces on his other boot. “Hey,” said Steve. “Bucky, hey.” Steve put his hands over Bucky’s to keep him from breaking the laces. “I’ll do it. It’s okay.” 

“Newspapers are full of shit,” said Bucky. His hands were still on the bootlace.

Steve took Bucky’s foot on his lap and began to pick at the knot. “I think Alexander Pierce really is dead,” Steve said. “Natasha saw him die with two bullets in the chest. And then the Triskelion fell on his corpse.” 

“The Triskelion fell on Crossbones, too. And that didn’t kill him.” 

Steve needed to translate the codename in his head. “Rumlow.” He winced, remembering the burn wounds and the raspy voice. “Yeah. But he didn’t get shot beforehand.” 

Bucky looked at him curiously. “You knew him.” 

“He was on my STRIKE team.” Steve was suddenly glad that he could focus on Bucky’s boots. The laces had finally loosened. “They mostly turned out to be Hydra.” He wrapped one hand around Bucky’s ankle to lever the boot off his foot. Bucky’s leg jerked at the touch, almost pulling out of Steve’s hand, but he let Steve take his boot off before he pulled his foot away. 

Steve turned the boot over in his hand. Bucky said, subdued, “Like if the Howling Commandos turned on you.”

“Not quite that bad,” Steve said, although sometimes – just near the end, when they’d been going on missions more often – he thought of them as his new commandos. Tossed around nicknames for the unit in his spare time. Not that there was anything wrong with the name STRIKE, but… “Yeah. Fuck,” Steve said, and he leaned back against the plane wall and closed his eyes. It still hurt. Maybe nothing ever really stopped hurting. 

“Fuck Hydra, anyway,” said Bucky. He sounded tired. 

Suddenly he sat up straighter and kicked his boot out of Steve’s hands. “What the – ” Steve began; but then there was a knock on the doorframe. Steve jumped. 

It was Coulson. He nodded at Steve, and said to Bucky, “You did good work out there today. Bringing Axminster in and getting him to talk.” 

Bucky didn’t respond. He had his head tilted forward so his hair fell in his face, hiding it from Coulson, but Steve could see that he was smiling. He loved to hear his fieldwork praised. 

Coulson went on. “But he seems to have dried up now that you’re not around. Could you come down to the Cage and motivate him?” 

_Motivate_. “ _No_ ,” Steve said. “You’re not turning him into an instrument of torture, Coulson, Jesus _Christ_.” 

Bucky slammed his foot against Steve’s knee. “He asked _me_ , dumbass, _shut up_.” 

“I did,” said Coulson. “And it’s an interrogation, not torture.” 

“Do you still think threatening to eject people from the plane – ” Steve began heatedly. 

“Shut up, Steve!” Bucky yelled. He bounced off the bed, nearly catapulting himself toward the door. Steve nearly grabbed his arm to stop him, but Bucky stopped of his own accord in the doorway, facing Coulson, standing a little too close in Coulson’s personal space. “I can tell Coulson how much his shitty interrogations techniques suck without you offering your fucking stupid opinions, Steve, so just shut the fuck up. No wonder we keep running around the globe after smoke and mirrors, these suckers are probably making up all kinds of shit just to keep you happy because people will say fucking _anything_ when they’re afraid. Probably Axminster was lying his head off back in the landing bay to make me go away, and that’s why he’s clammed up now, because he knows he can’t back it up.”

Steve and Coulson both gaped. Bucky stared back at Coulson, the implacable look that said he could stare all day long and then watch you sleep all night without needing to blink, and Steve felt a fierce and painful sense of pride. He’d underestimated Bucky: he was fighting Coulson, just like he fought everything else. 

And Coulson looked stunned. Clearly he’d expected that Bucky would be too terrified of him to do anything but say _yes_. 

“I got you someone useless,” Bucky said. “I’m sorry. I’ll go back and get you someone else if you want.”

Coulson reached out. Bucky didn’t flinch. But Coulson didn’t hit him, just put a hand on his shoulder. “They’ve undoubtedly moved the remains of the base by now,” Coulson said. He patted Bucky’s shoulder. “You did good work today,” he repeated, and left. 

Bucky stood in the doorway, waiting till Coulson was out of sight, then pulled the door shut. He picked up his iPod and scrolled aimlessly through it, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. The blankness was coming into his face. 

“Bucky,” Steve said. 

Bucky glanced up at him. His mouth was a little open and his eyes, now that Coulson was gone, were big and glassy and mostly pupil. Steve reached for him: he knew better, but sometimes he forgot. Bucky didn’t flinch, but he knocked Steve’s hands away, pinning his wrists. 

He hadn’t flinched away from Coulson either, and Steve thought: _He only flinches when he’s not really afraid_.

Bucky stared at Steve. “Don’t fight with Coulson about me.”

“I can’t promise that,” Steve replied.

Silence. Bucky let go of Steve’s wrists. “Please,” he said, very quietly. 

“I can’t,” said Steve. “I’m sorry.” 

Bucky dropped his gaze. Sweat-clumped strands of hair fell in his face. His distress seemed to fill the little cabin, and there no longer seemed to be enough air to breath. Steve pulled the door open, as if it would drain into the hallway; and it did seem to grow less intense, less pressing. 

At least for Steve. He could see Bucky breathing, chest rising and falling with carefully controlled slow breaths. 

He wanted to tell Bucky that Coulson wasn’t going to punish him for refusing – wasn’t going to punish either of them – but that wasn’t something he wanted to say on a bugged plane. And he wasn’t positive he was right, anyway.

He had the sense, as he had when he found out that his apartment really was bugged, of being in free fall: the rules were not what he thought they were, and he didn’t know the new ones. 

“Bucky – ”

Bucky snapped. He jumped off the bed, looming over Steve, and for a terrible moment Steve thought Bucky was going to hit him. “Get out!” Bucky yelled. “Get out, get out, get out!” 

“You’re blocking the door,” said Steve. 

Bucky stepped aside. Steve left. It took an effort not to duck away from an imaginary blow as he passed by. 

***

Steve rocketed out of bed at the sound of a knock on his door. He had been having a nightmare (they were getting more frequent; they had been far too frequent to begin with), but the noise drove it out of his head, and his heart was pounding and his mouth was dry and the world outside the plane window was silvery: moonlight on snow. They had landed. 

The knocking continued. “Steve,” said Bucky, and Steve pushed open his door. 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it was not for Bucky to be grinning at him, practically vibrating with energy. “Steve!” Bucky said. “Coulson said we can get breakfast for everyone. Come on!” 

The sun wouldn’t rise for an hour at least, and the morning was dark and so sharply cold that it made Steve feel sleepier rather than waking him up. Mist rose off the cobblestones. Occasionally a truck rumbled past, and once a pretty girl in a red coat shot by on her bicycle, but for the most part the city was as still and lovely as a picture postcard. Greetings from Somewhere in Germany or Maybe Austria. Steve stifled a yawn. 

Once they were on the city streets, out of sight of the plane, Bucky’s energy broke free. He ran in front of Steve, then stopped and ran back; and he grabbed onto lampposts and swung himself around them. He jumped off a streetlamp and landed a few feet in front of Steve, walking backward so they were face to face. His broken bootlace bounced across the cobbles. He tripped over it, and normally that would have made Bucky furious. But he just hopped across the pavement, trying not to fall, and grabbed Steve’s shoulder to steady himself. “Give me a piggyback ride,” he said, grinning at Steve. “Like I used to give you.”

“You don’t think that’ll be a bit conspicuous?”

“A couple of drunk tourists, conspicuous?” Bucky scoffed, grinning. His happiness was infectious; Steve hadn’t seen him so cheerful since his suspension ended. 

“Come on,” Steve said, and Bucky swung up on his back, his flesh arm across Steve’s chest and the metal one dangling at the side. Steve staggered a little, not from Bucky’s weight – that was nothing – but from the lopsidedness. Bucky’s breath hitched, but he drew in a slower, steadying breath, and began to belt out “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” 

Steve laughed so hard that he staggered again, and Bucky slid off his back. “You’ll get us arrested for disturbing the peace!” 

Bucky pointed to a bakery. “That one’s open.” 

Bucky walked a little slower once he had a bulging bag of baked goods in his arms. He unrolled the top of the bag and breathed in the smell of the bread, and a big goofy grin broke over his face. 

This was all very uncharacteristic. “You seem happy this morning,” Steve said cautiously. 

Bucky covered the smile with a hand. “He didn’t make me interrogate Axminster,” he said. 

“Coulson?” said Steve, and he felt a tension relax in his chest. 

“Of course Coulson, idiot,” Bucky said. But even the insult sounded fond, and he flung an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and hopped along beside him like he was playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. “Unless he’s being patient. But I think maybe you’re right.”

“I’m right?”

“Yes! That they’re nice.” 

Steve’s mouth opened in an O. “Bucky. He wanted you to torture Axminster.” 

“Whatever. Axminster’s a bad guy.” Bucky took an apple turnover out of the pastry bag and ate half of it in one bite. He brushed the crumbs off his coat, and said, “Who cares?”

“I care!” Steve said. 

Bucky rolled his eyes and stuffed the other half of the turnover in his mouth. “Your partiinost sucks,” he said, shedding crumbs as he spoke. He swallowed. “All organizations are like that. At least they’re nice to us.” 

Steve started to giggle. It was never a good idea to laugh at Bucky, and Bucky’s face darkened with rage. But Steve couldn’t stop, and he wasn’t giggling anymore, but outright laughing, belly laughs that made his stomach ache. He couldn’t even stand upright anymore, he was leaning against the uneven stone side of a building and laughing so hard that even with supersoldier breathing he couldn’t catch his breath, and Bucky’s voice seemed to be coming at him from far away. “Steve? Steve?”

Bucky’s hand was on Steve’s shoulder now. His face hovered close to Steve’s. “Steve? Did he hurt you? That’s not fair, that’s _not fair_. I’ll fucking _kill_ him, I’ll rip his throat out with my teeth. Steve. Steve? Steve? Steve, are you listening? Steve?”

Bucky’s hand was on Steve’s wrist, drawing Steve’s hand away from his face, and he was peering at Steve’s eyes. Steve slid down the stone wall so he was sitting on the cold damp sidewalk. 

“No, no, no,” Steve gasped. “No. I’m sorry. Coulson didn’t – no one hurt me. I’m sorry.” 

Bucky crouched down beside him. “I won’t really rip his throat out, Steve. I promise.” Steve stared at him, baffled, and Bucky added, “I won’t do anything to him. It would be useless anyway.”

He thought Steve was lying. “No, really,” Steve insisted. “I haven’t even see him since he walked out of your cabin. It’s just that – I spent all this time trying to convince you that they’re nice – and now you believe me, and it turns out they’re evil – ”

“Steve, what did he _do_?” 

“Nothing! Nothing to me. I mean just in general. They’re addicted to secret-keeping and have no concept of privacy and their values are so damn close to Hydra’s that they didn’t even notice seventy fucking years of infiltration. Fury signed off on Project Insight until he realized that Pierce meant to kill the wrong people.” Steve paused. Why was he working with SHIELD again? “And they torture people. I’m so proud of you for standing up to Coulson – ”

“Don’t patronize me,” Bucky snapped. “I only did it to keep you from arguing with him. You can’t _argue_ with him, Steve, please don’t argue with him. He can’t hurt you because of me.” 

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve said. “He didn’t hurt me. Why are you so sure I’m lying to you?”

“To keep me from doing something stupid,” said Bucky. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.” 

Steve rubbed his forehead. At some point Bucky had dropped the pastry bag, and the pastries lay strewn across the street. A Citroen crushed a strudel as it drove past. “Do you want me to strip off right here in the street to show you I’m okay?” Steve asked. 

“Like the marks would still be there,” Bucky scoffed. “Like Coulson’s stupid enough to do something that would leave marks.” 

Steve felt an unpleasant giddy sense of weightlessness. “Has – Bucky. Has Coulson punished you for things? In the past?” 

“Of course not,” said Bucky. He met Steve’s gaze, eyes clear and wide, and Steve had no idea whether he was lying. Bucky must have seen his confusion, because a mocking half-smile tugged at his mouth. “I’m not the one who argues with him.” The smile dropped away, and Bucky said, “Don’t argue with him about me, Steve.” 

“Bucky,” said Steve. 

“You’re going to get yourself in trouble. At least don’t get in trouble about me, wreck your life about something else,” Bucky said. He sucked his lower lip between his teeth, and then he smacked his palm against the wall above Steve’s head. “And you made me drop the strudel!”

“I’m sorry,” said Steve. He pulled himself back to his feet. “There’s a couple of bakeries on the way back to the plane. We can buy every strudel in the place.” 

The second bakery had a far more extensive strudel selection. The rich, sweet smell of pastry calmed Bucky down, but it didn’t bring his earlier effervescence back. Once they’d made their selections, he trudged alongside Steve and nibbled at a cheese strudel. Pink tinged the fog. The sun would soon be up. 

“Would you tell me if Coulson hurt you?” Steve asked. 

“Would you promise not to argue with him?”

Steve’s face twisted. He knew how much Bucky wanted him to say yes, and he couldn’t do it: just trying to summon the word made him sick to his stomach. 

“They’re the only people fighting Hydra now,” Bucky said. He nudged Steve with his shoulder. “Come on, Steve. We’re saving the world. That’s worth a little suffering, isn’t it?”

Steve sighed. “Yes.” 

The pastry bag rustled. Bucky extracted an apple strudel and gave it to Steve. “And May’s making her special hot chocolate,” Bucky added. “With the cinnamon. They _are_ nice, most of the time.” 

Steve ate the strudel. It saved him from having to reply.

**Author's Note:**

> I mused somewhat lengthily about partiinost and Bolshevism and the Winter Soldier [here](http://osprey-archer.livejournal.com/440607.html).
> 
> (And since writing that, I've realized that Bucky did in fact lose his arm in the fall, so the world will be forever denied the story of Stalin lecturing him about damaging state property while Bucky quietly bleeds out of his stump. I've sent people to gulags for less, Soldat!)


End file.
